By Michael Katz Los Angeles, CA. Looking back over the year’s worth of live performances I covered, mostly in jazz, is a bittersweet experience. There are surely enough terrific moments to fill a column, but in a city with L.A.’s diversity of talent, you can’t help wishing for more. Our club scene is struggling, with… Read More Live Music: 2012 in Review
The irrepressible Brick Wahl joins our hardy band of commentators just in time for a Halloween look back at one of the oddest horror films of the ’70s. By Brick Wahl I stayed up way late last night to watch the epic Night of the Lepus once again. Janet Leigh, Stuart Whitman, Rory Calhoun, Bones… Read More On Second Thought: “Night of the Lepus”
By Dave Gebroe If Eric Clapton ever gave a second thought to Disraeli Gears…. “If you were a 21-year-old kid stumbling around London with a guitar on your back, greeted at every turn by graffiti reminding you that you were the Almighty himself, I’m sure you’d like to think you’d remain supremely unaffected by the… Read More On Second Thought: “Disraeli Gears” (1967)
By Dave Gebroe There is this strange phenomenon that occurs, wherein bands who’ve fallen out of touch with current trends, whose salad days are now naught but a series of scrapbook clippings, attempt to get with the times and take up a more commercial direction…and wind up unintentionally creating the least commercial music of their… Read More On Second Thought: The Beach Boys – “Carl & The Passions…So Tough”
By Dave Gebroe Animals is an ugly record. The music is cold, coked-out aggro-prog, possessing none of the light, playful touches that made much of the Floyd’s previous work so alluring and transportative. The lyrics are depressingly downbeat and glum, and its grotesquely off-putting misanthropy remains almost unparalleled in the history of popular music. This… Read More On Second Thought: Pink Floyd “Animals”
By Dave Gebroe A while ago, I came across a description of the quandary Arthur Lee found himself in after releasing his undisputed masterwork, 1967’s “Forever Changes.” Although I can’t recall the source, it’s since come to stand as my lasting image of the man. In 1968, Lee walked out the door, stepped onto the… Read More On Second Thought: Love — “Four Sail” (1969)
By Dave Gebroe Whether it be from a priest, a rabbi, an outspoken relative, or the Almighty Bono Vox himself, my knee-jerk impulse to being preached at is exactly that: to knee that jerk, right in the groin. Along the same lines, I also don’t look fondly upon Greenpeace pamphlets being thrust in my face… Read More On Second Thought: U2 — “War” (1983)
by Dave Gebroe In the early morning hours of August 16, 1969, Sly Stone held hundreds of thousands of love children in the palm of his hand. Watch the “Woodstock” documentary, and see for yourself. More than any of the other performers, Sly nailed it. He owned that audience. He then promptly hunkered down,… Read More On Second Thought: Sly Stone — “High on You” (1975)
by Dave Gebroe “Lola Vs. Powerman And The Money-Go-Round, Part One“ was the Kinks‘ most successful record on both sides of the Atlantic since the mid-60s. It single-handedly elevated them to arena band status in the U.S. Its title track became their legacy, an FM standard that refuses to die. Ask any classic rock fan… Read More On Second Thought: The Kinks — “Lola vs. Powerman and the Money-Go-Round, Part One” (1970)
by Dave Gebroe I can remember very clearly the experience of discovering Bob Dylan’s mistakenly lambasted double-LP, “Self-Portrait.” I was but a mere babe in the rock ‘n’ roll woods at the time – no more than thirteen – and while I’d heard of the record, what I mainly knew was that it was not “Blonde on… Read More On Second Thought: Bob Dylan’s “Self-Portrait” (1970)
The International Review of Music 